Putting faith over fact, 5 conservative Catholic men on the Supreme Court have opened a Pandora’s Box: your boss now gets to interfere with your birth control decisions. In its sharply divided 5-4 ruling in Hobby Lobby, SCOTUS ramps up the War on Women.

I never thought sending a Facebook “Friend Request” could impact me they way it did. One day on my Facebook wall, I noticed an organization called “DREAMers Moms”, so I sent them a friend request. I quickly received a response that they wanted me to come to a meeting in Miami, Florida. I was changed forever… The meeting overwhelmed me, and I was able to catch it on film for “Documented” (which airs June 29th on CNN). Seeing the sacrifice these mothers made for their children so they could have a brighter future, the ability to go to college, build careers they never imagined, and build their...

One day in the early 1950s, my father’s folks loaded their kids into the car and took off down a central Indiana road for a picnic. My dad’s mom sat in the front seat, holding three month old Beverly, in her arms. As they turned a corner, an oncoming car smashed into them, killing baby Beverly. Today would we even consider dismantling the child safety seat laws just because some guy fervently believes they are the work of the devil? No way. Yet very soon now, the Supreme Court will decide whether your boss can take birth control out of your health coverage simply because he disapproves of it...

Dear President Obama, You must read Professor Diane Ravitch's latest book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools . You won't like it. No one likes reading about their failures. And that's exactly WHY you should read it. Your legacy is at stake. You risk having Race to the Top known as Race to the Bank due to the enormous payday tech companies, "edupreneurs," and charter chain operators stand to pocket from taxpayer money that instead should go to educating the nation's children. The official flickr photostream of the White House,...

Women can and do run for office, but their path to politics differs from the one most men follow. Women are generally asked to run and likely to have been recruited. Men tend to initiate their own candidacy, and worry less about if they are qualified or not. Women tend to feel under qualified, regardless of their background and experience. Women are far more likely to become involved politically because of a certain issue they are passionate about, like gun control, or education, or the need for public libraries. Men frame it as more of a career move. It is not surprising, then, that male...

I wrote this post for the Mothers Central Blog , where it appeared on January 16, 2014. Kate Fineske, the mother-in-charge of the site, graciously gave me permission to cross post it on my own blog, where you will find it in full below. Check out the rest of Kate's collection about parenting, motherhood, and how we achieve the impossible every. single. day - but only after you've finished reading this post! Mention politics to most people, and their eyes glaze over. Who can blame them? It’s depressing, an endless display of bad behavior by self-serving and self-important stuffed shirts. And...

Two nights ago, I hosted a gathering for my new ebook, Lean On and Lead, Mothering and Work in the 21st Century Economy . The event was an opportunity to experience the interactive nature of my project as well as to meet Hawaii's Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa, a candidate for US Senate , who is one of the interviews in my book. I had specifically invited mothers and daughters, and about a dozen found time to come, during the week before Christmas. They ranged in age from 11 to 72 years old. And though they live in the same community, most of the women were not acquainted. Even I, the common...

Every American should have been in the streets when our elected officials labeled cancer care for children as "nonessential." On a damp Friday morning, 11 days into the government shutdown, a few dozen truckers took to the Capital Beltway to tell lawmakers they were angry. They were protesting big government. Yet opinion polls showed that Americans opposed the government shutdown and were hurting because of it. At that moment, according to polls, nearly one in three Americans already felt personally affected not by too much government, but by too little — by the sudden freeze in critical...

Dear President Obama, You must read Professor Diane Ravitch's latest book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools . You won't like it. No one likes reading about their failures. And that's exactly WHY you should read it. Your legacy is at stake. You risk having Race to the Top known as Race to the Bank due to the enormous payday tech companies, "edupreneurs," and charter chain operators stand to pocket from taxpayer money that instead should go to educating the nation's children. The official flickr photostream of the White House,...